His Shotgun Proposal

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  “I didn’t suggest we jog out to the north pasture and back,” Mac said. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t get too tired, Brad. After all, in another couple of days, taking care of Abbie will be my job, won’t it?”

  Brad helped Abbie struggle out of the cushions while he and Mac stood, locked in brother-to-lover eye contact, then he shrugged. “Guess she’s almost past needing her big brother to watch out for her, isn’t she?”

  “Almost,” Mac agreed, and took Abbie’s hand. “We’ll see you later.”

  “You can bet on that.” Quinn added his two cents’ worth, but Abbie didn’t care. Mac had finally stepped up to the plate and signaled his intention to be a player in this melodrama, a man to be reckoned with. Now all she had to do was convince him to help her, persuade him that if they faced everyone together, they could put an end to the planning, the plotting and the nonsense. All they had to do was to stand together, two people bent on managing their own affairs, united in their belief that this marriage was not going to happen.

  All Abbie had to do was pretend she didn’t wish in her heart of hearts that it could.

  THE AIR STILL HELD the heat of the day, and the slight breeze off the water lured them toward the dock. Mac thought it was probably the worst possible choice for the discussion he had in mind. Lately he couldn’t seem to even look at the lake without thinking about holding Abbie in his arms, kissing her, wanting her. His gaze dropped to the definite curve of her pregnancy beneath the oversize white shirt she wore. It was as pointless to deny that her baby was a problem between them as it was to deny the attraction that had started the first moment they’d met and had led them here, to this.

  The silence walked with them like an uninvited guest, stilting the conversation before it could begin. Mac didn’t know what he’d wanted so badly to say to Abbie. He didn’t know what he’d thought a few minutes alone with her could accomplish. He certainly hadn’t known he’d want to put his arm around her shoulders, be the buffer between her and the rest of the world, offer her the comfort of not saying a word if that was what she wanted. He hadn’t realized how good it would feel just to be beside her again.

  They reached the dock and Abbie walked to the side and looked at the reflection of the rising quarter moon. Nights in Texas were dark and starry, with a sky as big as a cowboy’s dreams and as clear as his conscience. Mac had never before noticed how much softer and sweeter evening seemed when Abbie was in it with him. He should say something, ask her what she intended to do now, if marriage was her inevitable goal or only a means to infuse her bank account with unearned gains. But somehow, the moment was all wrong, the mood too appealing to ruin with harsh accusations and angry words. He only wanted to talk to her and hear the melodious tones of her voice in response. And yet, he couldn’t speak for watching how the breeze plucked at the ribbon in her hair, for noticing the glint of gold in the moonlit strands, for knowing somehow that she needed these few minutes of peace.

  “I’ve been rehearsing a speech for days now,” she said suddenly, softly. “And now, I can’t remember a word of it.”

  He let that sit for a moment, let the night noises have their say. “It’s a wonder you had time to prepare a speech. You’ve been under pretty close surveillance this week.”

  “Me?” She almost laughed, but the sound quickly stopped, turned sober. “I’ve been thinking the same thing about you. It’s pretty crazy that we’re supposed to be getting married in a few days and no one wants us to spend two seconds alone together.”

  “Your brothers are trying to protect you,” he offered as a completely ridiculous excuse.

  “They’re driving me crazy. And you’ve been doing your share to help them.” She looked at him across the short expanse of weathered docking. “You’ve been avoiding me, Mac, don’t deny it.”

  He started to, but changed his mind. “I guess I have been, in a way. I needed time to think.”

  “About what? The fact that in two more days we’re expected to stand up in front of both our families and say we’ll love and cherish each other until death do us part? Somehow, I don’t believe you have to think too hard about that one.”

  “No.”

  She looked down, hesitated, then brought up her gaze and her chin in one resolute movement. “We have to tell them together,” she said. “It’s the only way to stop this.”

  “You think that will do it?”

  “It will have to,” she said firmly. Decisively. “I don’t want to marry you. You don’t want to marry me. This has gone on too long already.”

  She could end it here. She could tell him she was leaving. Now. Tonight. And he’d never hear from her again. “What do you want to do, Abbie?”

  “Run away,” she said. “Tonight. Right now. Escape without a trace. Be anywhere but here.”

  Hope lifted its head, made him wonder for a second if she actually might have wearied of her charade, if she might choose to go quietly away, or if she wanted what marriage to him could give her and her baby and was simply working the conversation back around to it.

  “But running away isn’t the answer, either,” she continued on a sigh, sending the hope back where it belonged. “My parents are already on their way. They’re driving, bringing God only knows what all with them. I tried to convince them not to come, that there wasn’t going to be a wedding Saturday or any other day, but Quinn convinced them I was just overwhelmed by all the preparations.” She laughed without a hint of humor. “I am overwhelmed, Mac. And trapped.”

  “I know the feeling,” he said before he could stop himself. Her gaze narrowed, but he must have imagined the sharp flare of hurt he thought he’d seen there.

  “I never set out to trap you, Mac. I know you don’t believe that, but it is true.”

  What would happen if he chose to believe her? What would happen if he could bring himself to trust her one more time? But why should he take her on faith? “It’s simple enough to prove, Abbie.”

  The line of her jaw tightened. “How? By submitting my child to the indignity of a paternity test to prove to his father who he is, who he has a right to be? No, thank you. I won’t sacrifice my child to your pride.”

  “But you’d marry me? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I’ve just said I don’t want to marry you. What is it with the men around here? You asked me to marry you for some insane reason and I said no. But somehow you persist in the belief that I didn’t mean no when I said it. You—and everyone else—seems intent on believing I still intend to marry you despite numerous repetitions that it’s not going to happen. I don’t know what else I can possibly do or say to change your mind.”

  It was what had been happening all week. No one listened to Abbie. Mac had watched it, resented it, and yet, she was right, he continued to think her every word of denial was a lie, her every protest a manipulation. “You could change tactics, Abbie.”

  “And what would you suggest? Saying I do want to get married, so maybe you’ll finally believe I don’t? So maybe then my brothers will start undoing all the wedding plans they’ve put together this week?”

  “Maybe.”

  “That would never work, Mac, and you know it. I’m practically a prisoner as it is.” She glanced over her shoulder, back toward the house. “I fully expect someone will come looking for us at any second. We’ve been out here alone nearly ten minutes.”

  “Then we’d better plan fast. What if we eloped?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. We’ll go along with the arrangements, we’ll act happy about it, and tomorrow night, we’ll elope.”

  “Oh, sure, and what will that prove? That we didn’t get married their way, we just got married?”

  “Tomorrow night, we’ll leave a note saying we decided to elope. Hopefully, that will keep them from pursuing us with any urgency. We’ll make our escape, I’ll drive you to the airport and see you safely off. I’ll buy the ticket, get you a hotel room wherever you decide to go, and I swear no amount of torture
will make me tell them where you are, until you decide to call them and tell them yourself.”

  “But if I make a clean getaway, what will you do?”

  He shrugged. “Face the music. Someone has to explain. Might as well be me.”

  She turned back to look out across the placid lake. “Great idea, Mac, except for one small detail.”

  “You want to go tonight instead?”

  “No. The baby. What about the baby?’

  Her trump card. Her any-argument topper. What about the baby? “Do you want to marry me to give your baby a name, Abbie? Is that what you want?”

  There was another flash of hurt in her gaze, but it was quickly overshadowed by a tightly controlled anger. “No, Mac. What I want is never to have seen you again. What I want is for none of this mess to have happened. But I did and it did and here we are. I can’t go back now and pretend to myself that my baby’s father is a mystery to me. I can’t spend the rest of my life lying to my child about his other parent. I won’t do that. I will tell the truth whether you believe it to be true or not.” She inhaled quickly, deeply, seemed to regain her composure. “I need to know if you’re going to make a claim on my baby later.”

  “Make a claim?” His voice rose with anger, too. “You’ve just said you wouldn’t submit to a paternity test. That says to me you already know what the outcome would be.” He held up a hand to stop her protest. “I haven’t believed it was my baby all along, Abbie. Why would I come back after this fiasco and say it was?”

  “You told your family you were the father.”

  “With your brothers breathing down my neck, it seemed a reasonable response. I’ve thought better of it since.”

  “I wish you’d thought better of it before you said it. But now the baby will be caught in this family tug-of-war. Do you think we can just go back to before they knew? Tell them it was all a mistake?”

  His anger left as quickly as it had come. “No,” he said, then again, “No.”

  “We have to figure this out, Mac. And the minute we do, I swear I’ll get out of your life forever.”

  His stomach wrenched with the thought. His heart hurt at the solid-sounding forever. But his head told him to grab the opportunity she’d offered. “You go, Abbie, and I’ll figure out the rest.”

  Even the crickets stopped chirping for the space of a heartbeat, and then another. He heard nothing other than his words, echoing like thunder, rolling in a slow, slow motion toward her and then doubling back to him. Go, Abbie. Go, Abbie. Go, Abbie. Go…

  He felt her regret. But when she spoke there wasn’t a trace of it in her voice. “All right,” she said. “Tonight. I’ll say good-night to my brothers and I’ll go to bed. At two-thirty, I’ll slip out of the guest house and meet you at your truck.”

  “What if they catch you?”

  Her expression altered, turned cruel in a humorless smile. “I’ll tell them I’m sneaking out to see my fiancé.” Then as if she had no more energy to invest in what he thought of her, she lifted her shoulder in a careless shrug. “But they won’t catch me, and if they do, they won’t stop me.”

  Her determination, her confidence seemed out of place. Where had this resolve been all week? Had he finally broken her will? Or was she only manipulating him into yet another false sense of security? “What about your things?”

  “My brothers will take them when they leave. They won’t leave anything with you, don’t worry.”

  “Your brothers don’t worry me, Abbie. Only you.”

  She looked saddened by that. Her eyes held his gaze for a moment, then she turned away. “You’re afraid of me,” she said in a tone of soft irony. “Isn’t it funny that the first time we met I ran away because I was afraid of you, and now I have to run away because you’re afraid of me.”

  He couldn’t let that pass. “You weren’t afraid of me, Abbie. You told me just the other day that you’d had a prior commitment and that’s why you left without a word.”

  “I had accepted a job. I was going to be on my own—really on my own—for the first time in my life. It was my shot at independence, and I knew the first moment our eyes met, Mac, that I could need you forever after. You scared me all the way to the hidden corners of my soul. Running seemed the only way to save myself, so I ran, not knowing it was already too late, that I had already been caught.”

  He wanted to believe her. He very much wanted that. But she hadn’t been caught by the need for him, but by what she believed he could give her. Wealth, status, a means to escape her authoritarian family. “It seems to me you ran because you didn’t want to take any chance that your plan wouldn’t work, that I’d figure out what you had in mind before you could get all your ducks in a row.”

  She shook her head. “What made you so distrustful, Mac? What turned your heart so hard that you’d rather believe I would scheme to rob you of some material possession than to simply want to share with you a miracle?”

  “Experience.”

  “No, Mac. Experience teaches something of value, however painful the lesson. But all you gleaned from the fact that one woman betrayed you is that all women will do the same. You decided not to take any risk, not to trust any woman. You turned Gillian’s deceit into the idea that you have no value to a woman other than as a Coleman or as a royal prince of Sorajhee. You’re afraid of me because you can’t believe I honestly, truly, might have loved you. You’re afraid of me because you know somewhere in your stubborn, hard heart that you might have honestly, truly, loved me.”

  His heart clenched but somehow kept beating. She was wrong. She was playing to his sympathy, making one last attempt to change his mind, going on the offensive to maintain the upper hand. “Give it up, Abbie,” he said thickly. “There’s only one way you can convince me you’re not just like Gillian, and that’s for you to go now, tonight, and never come back.”

  He thought he saw her shiver, but as it wasn’t cold he figured he must have imagined that, too. Certainly, he expected her to give him the cold shoulder when she realized he had won. But when she turned, there was only resolution in her expression. “I’ll be at your truck at two-thirty,” she said. “That should give us a three- or four-hour head start. I only wish…”

  He wished, too—he just didn’t know for what. “What do you wish, Abbie?”

  “That I was already anyplace but here.” Then she walked away from him, head up, shoulders back and, with every step, going farther out of his reach and out of his life.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Austin airport was eerily quiet in the early morning, as a few sleepy-looking passengers awaited the six-o’clock flight to Dallas. At other waiting areas, undoubtedly other passengers waited for other flights to arrive or leave, but the steel-and-tiled structure was mostly hushed and still. Once in a while, there was a hollow sound of hard soles on shiny tiles, of footsteps amplified by their very solitude. Abbie’s disinterested gaze watched as a man ran past, his expression set and eager, indicating his lateness for a flight or in meeting a late arrival. Outside the long sweep of windows, dawn stretched lazy fingers across the horizon. Inside, the airport was bright with artificial lights and the faces of people engrossed in waiting. Some read—a newspaper, book or magazine. Some napped. Some talked to one another in low morning tones, soft and indistinguishable. Most, like Abbie, were sitting still, quietly waiting for a departure to somewhere else. She wished her plane would arrive, disembark its passengers and take her aboard. She wanted this long night to be over, these final, dreadful moments to be past. She wanted to be gone, away from Texas, away from the past few weeks, away from Mac.

  He sat beside her in the waiting area for Flight 55, Southwest Airlines service from Austin to Dallas. There wasn’t anything to say. Even the trip from the ranch to the airport had been completed in near silence. “Is this all you’re taking?” he’d asked when she met him at the truck with her purse and a carry-on bag.

  “That’s it,” she’d said in answer.

  “Cool enough?” h
e’d asked on the road, offering in a gesture to adjust the air inside the truck.

  “Fine, thanks,” she’d replied. “Thank you” and “you’re welcome” had been their only exchange after her ticket to Little Rock was purchased.

  “Goodbye, Mac,” she’d said once she’d checked in at the gate.

  “I’ll wait with you,” he’d responded, as if he had to stay to make sure she got on the plane.

  So, now, here they sat, side by side, not speaking at all. Two people who’d come so close to something special and ruined it so completely.

  The man who’d been running came back, carrying on his shoulder a little boy who was fast asleep, talking animatedly to a woman who looked harried but happy. A family, Abbie decided. Reunited after a night of flight delays and missed connections. A father, a mother, a child. Her heart ached for what her child would miss, for the reassurance she herself might have found in sharing some of the responsibilities, all of the joys.

  Mac leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped, his hat dangling from loose fingers. The toe of his boot tapped impatiently against the carpet. His tension was high and so taut she thought if she touched him, he might snap like a rubber band, leaving her stinging from the contact. She didn’t know why he was tense. She was doing what he’d wanted her to do from the start. She was going, running away like a thief in the night, as if she had something to hide, as if she had something of which to be ashamed. Mac had done that to her. Even being fired from Miss Amelia’s Academy for Young Ladies hadn’t made her feel this deeply humiliated. Mac had accused her of being a liar, a cheat, a master manipulator, a gold digger. He thought her guilty of the worst sort of betrayal and believed every word out of her mouth was a lie. She ought to be glad to be leaving. She ought to be anxious to get gone. But the truth was, leaving the Desert Rose had felt awful. Terrible, Wrenching.

  She’d left notes for Jessie, Rose and Vi. She’d left a brief note for her brothers, telling them she needed a couple of days by herself before they came after her, before she had to explain anything. It was optimistic to think they might wait a couple of hours, but she’d done all she could and she was flat tired of trying to buck them and their better way. As long as this crazy shotgun wedding business didn’t go any further, she’d take their advice about everything else. From now on, they could smother her with good intentions and she’d not say a word of protest. As long as tomorrow and Saturday passed without a wedding, she’d live the rest of her life under the suffocating shelter of their protection. It would be up to her child to exercise independence. Undoubtedly, the little one growing inside her had inherited some measure of Mac’s fierce pride and the uncles would be in for a rude awakening. That thought, alone, gave Abbie’s spirits a lift. Not much of one, but still a lift, to be sure.